canine Charlotte McPherson

My joy is in dogs. When at a low, dogs are the sun. It’s kind of obvious. By now we know dogs are great for us, they provide much more than a cute face. They see blood sugar lows as delicate as lace in people with diabetes. A sensory Sinatra, with a wagging tail, plush coat, panting tongue. A grounding friend that will never tell your secrets, They retrieve trash from the ocean. Something that was never their problem, but is now their job to solve. They’ve given hope to hospice members. They have an unmeasurable loyalty that most humans can’t even expect of themselves. Something you can go to, something more than just the day by day structure of our plain human lives. Dogs bring out the best in us. You can get a good sense of someone's personality by watching how they interact with dogs. We are lifted of our social pressure temporarily to engage with a being incapable of judgement.

Now think about what we’ve done for them. The bare minimum, in some cases. Dogs deserve the world, and yet? They get left out in the cold, abandoned like a candy wrapper, dropped at highways, rehomed, and rehomed again because of a problem that a human was too lazy to fix.

Somehow, they still forgive Somehow, starting again, they hold trust in their eyes like a warm sweater. Memories are there but aren’t holding them back.

Charlotte McPherson, Grade 8 Lake Harriet Upper School, Minneapolis Teaching Artist, Frank Sentwali